Well that was different! This was mentioned in one of my book groups on FB - Zombie apocalypse from the POV of the animals. That sounded interesting. I was able to snag a copy (audio and kindle) from the library, and figured it fit into the "spooky" mood for October. 

I go into a lot of books "blind" ... not really reading the blurb. I think I would have been quite confused if I hadn't been clued in that our narrator here was an animal (a domesticated crow as the main character), and that there was a Zombie apocalypse going on. Even knowing that, I got a bit confused when Big Jim's eyeball fell out (this is at the start of the first chapter)...

The thought process of ST was fun to follow - he's got a foul mouth (profanity x53 ... and "mofo" 430 times) and an extensive vocabulary. Maybe not in his actual speech (although he's quite talented with that), but his thoughts, which we are synced in to.  This had quite a few words I notice; cacophony, cerulean, murmuration, intermittently, kudzu, pellucid ...

Whilst ST is the narrator for most of the chapters, we get a peek at the mind of several other animals as well. Winnie the Poodle, Genghis Cat, some other birds, a polar bear,  an armadillo, a cow, a whale, there's even some meditations by a spruce tree (which reminded me of one of the chapters in North Woods).  We do NOT really know what Dennis the Dog is thinking, and while so many of the animals seem to be anthropomorphized to the extreme ... Dennis ... is a dog. A dumb dog, but still a dog we love. 

I didn't have a physical copy of this book. I went primarily with audio  - single narrator, even with the different POVs, but it was fine as he really changed up the voices) but liked having the kindle copy on hand for reference and review.  I assume the physical copy, like almost all today, doesn't deign to provide a Table of Contents. The TOC in the Kindle/Audio was bare bones, just the chronological chapters. I would have really appreciated also having the POV (and location) listed (headers at the beginning of each chapter). It's super helpful when reviewing, if knowing I wanted to re-read a "Winnie-the-Poodle" chapter to be able to check the TOC and know exactly where to go, instead of having to flip through the entire book and hope to find it again. 

Lots of "the one who ...." opens doors, spits, etc ... 
HOLLOWS ... the word was used 60 times. While ST calls humans "MoFos" ... most of the rest of the animal kingdom is calling the Zombifed humans Hollows because of their disassociated state. Because it's used in the title, I tended to notice it every time it was used (not only as the zombies).

It was interesting to see the copyright symbol  © a few times  - with La-Z-Boy and the all important Cheetos ... but not Doritos, SpongeBobSquarePants, Glad bags, SeaHawks (95% of this takes place in Seattle). I couldn't figure out why some products got the copyright symbol but others didn't. I don't think the audio added it (which I could see happening if the copyright was part of the story). 

The Kindle copy had discussion questions - I always appreciate these. It's like a mini-book club, making me delve a little deeper and think of things I might not have otherwise. 

There is a sequel ... as much as liked this, I'm not sure I'll continue ...